1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communications systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to a wireless communication device and method for escalating the media handling of applications resident on the computer platform of a wireless communication device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modern wireless communication devices, such as cellular phones, PDAs, mini-laptops, and advanced pagers, typically communicate over long distances by bridging telephone calls through existing cellular telephone networks and passing data packets across the network. These wireless devices often have limited to significant data processing and computing capability, and can accordingly send and receive software programs, in addition to voice, across the telephone network and perform advanced computer functions.
Some of these wireless communication devices have a computer platform which has a resident operating system with one or more software layers or objects that interact with active programs executing on the computer platform. One problem with the use of an advanced, multi-layered operating system on the wireless device computer platform is that there can be a significant delay in executing applications and passing data among various applications. The delay can hamper time sensitive data handling on the computer platform and interrupt communications.
There exists a wireless telecommunication service that provides a quick one-to-one or one-to-many communication that is generically referred to as “Push-To-Talk” (PTT) capability. The specific PTT group of recipient devices for the communicating wireless device is commonly set up by the carrier. A PTT communication connection is typically initiated by a single button-push on the wireless device that activates a half-duplex link between the speaker and each member device of the group and once the button is released, the device can receive incoming PTT transmissions once the button is released. In some arrangements, the PTT speaker will have the “floor” where no other group member can speak while the speaker is speaking. Once the speaker releases the PTT button, any other individual member of the group can engage their PTT button and they will have the floor.
In particular regard to PTT communications, specific handling of voice packets is often done with a queue for transmission from the device, and a general resident application of the operating system will handle the transfer of the media packets to and from the queue. The general application will invoke another application to exchange frames with a Vocoder and will queue frames to compensate for the non-real time transmission of the PTT communication. This delay can cause “jitter” in the outgoing voice “talk spurt.”
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a wireless computer device that can escalate the handling of very time sensitive, priority data, such as PTT communications, from its computer platform without invoking all layers of the resident operating system. The escalation of handling of priority data, such as media, should be accomplished without compromising other resources of the wireless communication device. It is thus to the provision of such a wireless communication device with dynamic escalation of priority data that the present invention is primarily directed.